different between obsessed vs valetudinarian

English

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /?b?s?st/

Verb

obsessed

1. simple past tense and past participle of obsess

Adjective

obsessed (comparative more obsessed, superlative most obsessed)

1. Intensely preoccupied with or by a given topic or emotion; driven by a specified obsession.
   • 1997, Philip Roth, American Pastoral:

     What was starting to unsettle him, to frighten him, was the idea that Merry was less horrified now than curious, and soon he himself became obsessed, though not, like her, by the self-immolators in Vietnam but by the change of demeanor of his eleven-year-old.

   • 1999, Mark Lawson, The Guardian, 28 Jun 1999:

     Strangely, although it is an international cliché that the British are obsessed with the weather, it is a fixation with minor irritations: will rain spoil the wedding, the Test Match, the bank holiday?

   • 2007, Thomas Pynchon, Against the Day:

     Everyone lay around in a sort of focused inertia, drinking, handing cigarettes back and forth, forgetting with whom, or whether, they were supposed to be romantically obsessed.

2. Influenced or controlled by evil spirits, but less than possessed in that the spirits do not actually reside in the victim.
   • E. W. Sprague, 1915, Spirit Obsession Or a False Doctrine & A Menace to Modern Spiritualism, page 86, ?ISBN.

     Believing that an evil spirit is trying to obsess one is a dangerous belief, and when one comes to believe he is obsessed by an evil spirit, though there is not an evil spirit within a thousand miles of him, he will have all the symptoms.

   • 2007, James E. Padgett, The Teachings of Jesus, page 100, ?ISBN.

     It is true, that by the workings of the law of attraction, and the susceptibility of mortals to the influence of spirit powers, mortals may become obsessed by the spirits of evil...

   • 2010, Joseph Agbi, Living in God's Kingdom, page 71, ?ISBN.

     What of demon possession, whereby a person is not only obsessed or oppressed by evil spirits, but these spirits actually reside in such a person?

Translations

Anagrams

• debosses

English

Etymology

From Latin val?t?din?rius, from valetudo (“state of health, health, ill health”), from valere (“to be strong or well”) +? -an.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?væ.l??tu?.d??n?.?i.?n/
• (US)

Adjective

valetudinarian (comparative more valetudinarian, superlative most valetudinarian)

1. Sickly, infirm, of ailing health
   • 1910, Florence Anne Sellar MacCunn, Sir Walter Scott's Friends, p. 234

     The valetudinarian habit of discussing his health had grown on Rose...

   • 1841, Thomas Macaulay, Comic Dramatists of the Restoration (printed in Edinburgh Review, January 1841)

     The virtue which the world wants is a healthful virtue, not a valetudinarian virtue.

2. Being overly worried about one's health

Synonyms

• hypochondriac
• hypochondriacal
• valetudinary

Translations

Noun

valetudinarian (plural valetudinarians)

1. A person in poor health or sickly, especially one who is constantly obsessed with their state of health
   • 1787, Thomas Jefferson to Thomas Mann Randolph, July 6, 1787 in The Works of Thomas Jefferson, Paul Leicester Ford (ed.), Vol. 5, pp. 300-01 (NY: 1904)

     The most uninformed mind, with a healthy body, is happier than the wisest valetudinarian.

   • 1815, Jane Austen, Emma, Vol. I, Ch. 1

     The evil of the actual disparity in their ages (and Mr. Woodhouse had not married early) was much increased by his constitution and habits; for having been a valetudinarian all his life, without activity of mind or body, he was a much older man in ways than in years; and though everywhere beloved for the friendliness of his heart and his amiable temper, his talents could not have recommended him at any time.

   • 1884, Dixon Kemp, A Manual of Yacht and Boat Sailing (4th Ed.)

     The cuisine, of course, would not be such as would raise water bubbles in the mouth of a valetudinarian; the carnivorous propensity will mostly be gratified by steak which, when cut, will resemble the Mudhook Yacht Club burgee of rouge et noir; and savory soups and luscious salmon will be luxuries only obtainable in "cannister" form.

   • 1950, Mervyn Peake, Gormenghast

     Are you a mere valetudinarian, my dear Ladyship, or some prolific mendicant whose bewitched offspring she hopes I can return to human shape?

   • 1985, Louis Auchincloss, Honorable Men

     She affected to be spunky about her ailments and afflictions, but she was in fact an utterly self-centered valetudinarian.

Synonyms

• valetudinary

Derived terms

• valetudinarianism

Translations

Synonyms

• hypochondriac

References

• valetudinarian in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.